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"Dirty Is Only Skin Deep" is a comic book that takes place in Book Two: Earth, originally released by Nickelodeon Magazine. It was later recycled for Free Comic Book Day 2011, and was finally re-released by Dark Horse Comics in Avatar: The Last Airbender — The Lost Adventures.

Contents

Overview

When Team Avatar notices that its new recruit, Toph, is less than clean, Katara will do whatever it takes to wash her down.

Synopsis

While bathing and cleaning her clothes in a lagoon with Aang and Sokka, Katara asks Toph, who is stomping around in the dirt and singing, if she wants to join them in the water. Despite criticism from Sokka, who wonders if the smell was as beneficial as the dirt covering her, Toph refuses to get in the water. Katara responds by pulling Toph along herself into the water, but the earthbender bends a wall into which Katara collides. In a last-ditch effort, Katara lifts Toph into the air with her waterbending and drops her into the lagoon. Instead of protesting as she had before, Toph merely flails in the shallow water, shouting that she does not want to drown. Pitifully, Katara parts the water so that Toph will stop screaming. Falling into the mud that lay at the bottom of the lagoon, dirt flies onto the clothes that Team Avatar just cleaned as well as Toph's friends. Although Aang tries to infuse humor by mentioning their "protective layers of earth", Sokka sarcastically mentions how the Fire Nation will not be deterred by "mud in their eyes".

Production notes

Transcript

Goofs

In one of the panels, Sokka's neckband is missing.

Trivia

This comic was originally released in Nickelodeon Magazine, but was later re-released in 2011 in honor of Free Comic Book Day. It was one of the first in a new collaboration between Dark Horse Comics and the Avatar: The Last Airbender team, which eventually led to a new comic series, The Promise, detailing the characters' lives after the Hundred Year War.